Like discussed in this week’s round table, the Diamondbacks have been surprisingly good the past week, splitting a series with the MLB leading Milwaukee Brewers and beating the supposedly invincible incumbent World Series Champions. In almost every series, the Diamondbacks narrowly lost or narrowly won a game and are now 17-13 in their final 30 games.
The month of August saw excellent batting performances from usual suspects Ketel Marte and Corbin Carroll, while Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and Geraldo Perdomo hit better than they normally do. Blaze Alexander has been blazing his way through the majors in the month of August, while the return of Gabriel Moreno has been a necessary and refreshing reinforcement in the batting lineup and behind the plate. Even Jake McCarthy is hitting a .283 in August.
But for every “yay” we also have a “nay” and unfortunately Tyler Locklear’s batting line is still dreadful with .155/.245/.226, while we are also still waiting for Jordan Lawlar’s first hit of the season.
The bullpen, meanwhile, has been unexpectedly middle of the pack, as 1AZfan1 pointed out in the round table discussion, obviously helped by Andrew Saalfrank’s healthy pitching there. On the starting pitching front we see that Zac Gallen might be setting himself up for a somewhat better outlook in the free agent market. All others…well, let’s just say that no one is probably surprising us these days with his performance.
If we look at the Pythagorean record, the Diamondbacks are now on a fine 71-67 record, which would be 2 games out of the final Wild Card, behind the New York Mets. With the factual 68-70 record, however, we are trying to beat out the Giants and Cardinals, while still behind the Reds. Who knows, though, if the Diamondbacks can keep up their August pace, maybe they can sneak into a Wild Card. One month ago, the Diamondbacks were 10 games out of a Wild Card. Just saying.
The Rangers are very much in it as well.
The Texas Rangers have been chasing a Wild Card for a long time. By the end of July they were out of a Wild Card, but still decided to add to their roster instead of subtracting. Hence the Merrill Kelly trade. Merrill has been mainstay in Arlington as well, pitching almost 6 innings per game, with a 3.31 ERA. He has been a lot more prone to the long ball as a Ranger though, giving up 7 in his 6 starts, compared to 14 in his 22 starts this season as a Diamondback. Merrill last pitched for the Rangers on Friday and is not listed as a (probable) starter, so Arizona won’t see their lost son pitching at Chase Field.
Though the Rangers have achieved an 8-2 record over their last 10 games, which has put them back into Wild Card conversations (2.5 games behind the Mariners), they recently saw a couple of key players head to the injured list:
Nathan Eovaldi (SP). Out for the season since August 27.Marcus Semien (2B). Probably out for the season since August 22.Evan Carter (CF). Out for the season since August 22.Corey Seager (SS). Could be out for the season, since August 28.
On the other hand, the Rangers recently saw Adolis García return (though the former WS slugger is not having a great season) and the return of Jake Burger at first base could also be a slight improvement in their batting lineup. However, Seager’s .271/.373/.487 batting line will be hard to replace.
Old friend Joc Pederson, by the way, while his season batting line is still pretty dreadful, his .942 OPS over the month of August in 24 games clearly shows that he is on fire.
Game #1 Mon 09/01 5:10 PM MST, Patrick Corbin (TEX) vs Ryne Nelson (ARI).
Patrick Corbin. 25 GS, 131.0 IP, 7 W-9 L, 4.33 ERA, 4.28 FIP, 1.36 WHIP, 109/43 K/BB. $1,100,000.Ryne Nelson. 28 G, 18 GS, 125.0 IP, 7 W-3 L, 3.53 ERA, 3.61 FIP, 1.06 WHIP, 24/6 K/BB. $825,000 (Pre-Arb).
Patrick Corbin was not supposed to pitch this season in Texas, but things happen when you have injuries in your projected starting rotation and so the southpaw went from a minor league contract to the Texas Rangers rotation. In all honesty, for a minimum price and even less expectations, Corbin has been providing useful innings in Arlington, a lot more useful than the ones he pitched in Washington ever since winning that World Series with the Nationals. It has, however, been a mixed bag. Patrick pitched 8 scoreless innings in his latest outing, against the Angels, but before that he gave up 17 runs in just 13.1 innings (4 games). His performance against the Diamondbacks leaves much to desire as well. While many a Diamondback can look back to some moderate success when facing the Snakes with his new team, Corbin gave up 11 runs in just 3 innings the last time he saw the Diamondbacks, on July 30 2024.
Ryne Nelson has been all we wanted and more this season. However, August was not very kind to Ryne until he had a nice performance against the Brewers his last time out. Before that, though, there were 18 runs in his previous 5 outings. A bit unlucky he was.
Game #2 Tue 09/02 6:40 PM MST, Jacob Latz (TEX) vs Nabil Crismatt (ARI).
Jacob Latz. 27 G, 4 GS, 63.1 IP, 1 W-0 L, 3.13 ERA, 3.80 FIP, 1.28 WHIP, 61/29 K/BB. $760,000 (Pre-Arb, $596,556 adjusted).Nabil Crismatt. 3 G, 2 GS, 14.2 IP, 2 W-0 L, 1.84 ERA, 3.53 FIP, 1.36 WHIP, 11/5 K/BB. $760,000 ($171,612 adjusted).
Jacob Latz is predicted as a starter for the second match, because he was the Rangers’ starter on August 27. Latz has seen most of his performances in long relief, maxing out at 60 pitches the majority of the times. He could go longer if things go according to wish, proved by 2 starts where he threw over 80 pitches. In his latest start there wasn’t any need to pull him after 4.1 innings (the Rangers had already scored 11 runs), but maybe Bochy wanted to reserve him for the almighty and fearful Diamondbacks.
It isn’t pretty, but it is effective and better than DeSclafani, so you send that Crismatt to the hill until his luck runs out. Hopefully, there is enough luck in the pot to also beat the Rangers.
Game #3 Wed 09/03 12:40 PM MST, Jack Leiter (TEX) vs Zac Gallen (ARI).
Jack Leiter. 27 GS, 121.2 IP, 9 W-7 L, 3.77 ERA, 4.23 FIP, 1.31 WHIP, 118/59 K/BB. $762,500 (Pre-Arb).Zac Gallen. 28 GS, 162.0 IP, 10 W-13 L, 4.94 ERA, 4.48 FIP, 1.30 WHIP, 149/56 K/BB. $13,500,000.
Zac Gallen is finally under a 5.00 ERA over the season, so that is fun for him and for us. He has been good in August and will surely try and continue to carry over that performance into September and his free agency run.
Jack Leiter, on the other hand, looked like he was going to dominate this season in his first 2 starts of the season, then got injured and since his return hasn’t been able to dominate the batter’s box. He walks one too many and is not efficient with his pitches, evidenced by him getting pulled 3 times in August before the 5th inning.
You’d say that the Diamondbacks can be a spoiler once again for a team with playoff aspirations and win this series.